Scroll down for updates.
A 28-year-old South African woman is in a coma after a tossed cigarette butt ignited a sofa in her apartment building's hallway. Mokpo police arrested a 30-year-old Korean man for allegedly throwing the cigarette in the building's second-floor hallway while drunk.
It happened apparently at 6:15 am on the morning of Saturday, November 29th. From what I was told via email, the woman smelled smoke and opened the door, which created a flash that burned her lungs and put her in a coma. However, from what I can tell the news hasn't reported on her condition yet, so that information is second- and third-hand. The news does say, though, that she is an English teacher at a Mokpo middle school. Articles also say the man had a blood-alcohol content of .112, though I'm not sure what relevance that has if they didn't make an arrest until yesterday.
There are a few articles, in Korean, thus far:
* "원룸 화재…원어민 교사 중태" - 11/29/08, 14:07
* "`친구 대신 집봐주다가' 외국인 여성 화재로 중태" - 11/29/08, 16:05
* "목포 옥암동 원룸화재 30대 구속" - 12/01/08, 16:16
* "담배 피우다 원룸 불낸 30대 구속<목포경찰>" - 12/01/08, 16:57
If anyone has any more information, please post a comment or send me an email. I suspect there will be a Facebook group set up to share information, provide support, and defray medical costs.
* Update 1 (Wednesday, December 3rd, 20:09): Looking through another article from November 29th, it says the woman burned in the fire was house-sitting for another foreign friend who had gone to Seoul, leaving three puppies in her charge.
I came across an article in a local paper from December 2nd, although it's not available online. If anyone is in Mokpo and has Korean-language papers lying around school, you might be able to find a little more information there.
* Update 2 (20:28): A translation in the Korea Herald.
* Update 3 (Thursday, December 4th, 15:27): Her parents arrived in Mokpo today.
Some articles have said she is 28, while others have said 26. This could either be sloppy reporting or a discrepency caused by the way Asians calculate age.
* Update 4 (Friday, December 5th, 00:39): Korea Beat has translated an article that ran in the Korean papers yesterday. Members of the Mokpo police force are raising money to help with her medical expenses.
* Update 5 (11:35): Still no news about fundraising efforts among foreigners. We'll also need to organize something for the police officers who took it upon themselves to help out her family, to applaud and recognize them for helping out when we frequently hear nothing but negative news about Korean poiice. The Mokpo police website has information up about the tragedy, though I can't link directly to it. If you can navigate Korean you'll see it on the main page.
* Update 6 (December 8th, 13:24): According to a post on Dave's---so take that with a grain of salt---at the bottom of page 2, the woman is still in a coma with slight burns but with severe damage done to her throat, esophagus, and lungs. Still not much information available, though some rumors floating around that I won't mention here. I will be talking to her parents within the next few days and will give an update then.
* Update 7: (16:15): A quick update here. Her family will be flying to Seoul for further tests. Donation information should be available shortly.
* Update 8 (19:53): Donation information now available.
* Update 9 (December 11th, 09:32): The family of Bill Kapoun, an English teacher killed in a February fire, has been donating money to Nerine's cause.
* Update 10 (December 14, 17:35): She has died.
10 comments:
That's second foreign teacher this year in a deadly apartment first. William Kapoun was the first, who later died in hospital. I hope this lady has proper medical care.. William and his family had a real hard time.
Make sure you protect yourself, many Korean apartments have old fire safety equipment that may not work or has been removed completely.
http://blog.esldaily.org/2008/04/13/paranoia-or-good-sense-fire-safety.aspx
Are there any details regarding how to assist with defraying medical costs?
No idea yet. So far I haven't heard any updates from any foreigners in Mokpo.
I didn't mean to get too far ahead of myself . . . I mean, of course I hope she's okay. I just meant that I'm sure people will set up a facebook group or something and that will help get more information out there.
I got a call from my coteacher on Saturday asking me if I was safe and told me that a South African in Mokpo died. Brian, no-one here seems to know who is it either yet.
Is there anyway we can find out more info on who she is and anyway that we can help?? If her family is not here maybe there is something that some of us can do......why does it seem like information is so hard to find about this situation??
I don't know, I'd figure one of her friends would have heard about it. I hardly know anyone in Mokpo so the initials don't ring any bells. Facebook didn't turn up anything either. Who knows if her family has been contacted yet. If Zach's coteacher got a call, and if it's been in the papers, there's a slight chance somebody might have gotten word to her family. But then again, if something were to happen to me, would anyone even know what to do?
Well, I live in Mokpo, and the initials don't ring any bells. The only Mokpod South African I know is alive and well...
And I also heard that the fire was fatal - there doesn't seem to be any solid information on this.
PLEASE keep this blog updated! This lady is my friend and this is the only way I can know what is happening since I live in SA. I'm very worried about her!
Hi,
I can confirm that her parents is with her at the moment. She is still in a coma.
If anyone gets more information about her, please update me a.s.a.p. so that the rest of her family back in SA can be kept up to date.
Thank you in advance.
Naver article gravely counts up the square footage of the fire damage and the estimated dollar value of the damage.
And then, oh, BTW, she's in coma in a hospital.
Classy.
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